Abram of Ur And Why He Moved To His New Destination

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

     Abraham about to be stopped in the sacrifice of his son, Isaac.  Today,  Muslims believe Abraham (known as Ibrahim) was commanded by God to sacrifice his son. However, there are two key differences between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions: Muslims believe the son was Ishmael (Ismail) rather than Isaac, and that the son was a willing participant. Ishmael was the son of Hagar, Abrams's concubine/wife that couldn't get along with Sarah being Ishmael resented the new baby then and as he was growing up.   

Jewish children usually were able to grow up with the story of Abram whose name was changed to Abraham and learn that he was on quite a trip and had earned the newer name to show he had gone through a  transformation in thinking, like becoming a new person.     I'm going to elaborate on the why and how he did that and why it's so interesting and full of meaning for us.

Genetic studies today have consistently shown that Palestinians and Jews share deep biological roots and are close genetic neighbors. Both groups inherit a significant portion of their ancestry from the ancient populations of the Levant.  This differs from studies done at least 20 years ago.  However, findings do not indicate that Palestinian DNA has become more similar to Jewish DNA over the past two decades. Rather, the scientific consensus has remained consistent: genetics demonstrate a high degree of ancestral continuity in the region.  I believe this shows that we may be 20th cousins to Palestinians but do not share the same interpretations of morality that Judaism has presented to us through Abram, and than Moses, his 15th descendant or so.  It's all in the interpretations.  

              Ur of the Chaldees on the Euphrates River

Abram grew up in Ur of the Chaldees, the meaning explanation showing the importance of the Chaldees as their might have been another Abram somewhere.  The Chaldees show the type of people who lived there.  Abram was an extremely important man to the Jewish people.  He was our Patriarch and his wife Sarah, who was his niece, was our Matriarch.  The patriarch Abram (later Abraham) was born and lived before God called him to migrate to Canaan. It was a major urban center in ancient Mesopotamia. I had thought of it as a simple little grouping of huts, being Abraham lived in the 2nd millennium BCE, probably about the year 1948 BCE., which is about 4,000 years ago.  One cannot even imagine 250 years ago when our USA was born let alone 4,000 years ago.

It turns out that Ur certainly was a major urban center, a large one at that.  It's where people were sacrificed to their polytheistic gods regularly when they needed things.  We know this because Moses wrote about it when Abram was asked to sacrifice his only son to their G-d., and he seemed willing to do it, getting everything ready, when they were stopped by an angel.  The story reflects the change in Abraham, not going along with sacrificial rituals.  To me, he then realized that he didn't want his children to grow up with such a morality as that, and he had to leave this city and find a place barren of such thinking. Ur at that period was like New York City to Abraham. 

Ur has been investigated by archaeologists.   It was situated in southern Mesopotamia on the banks of the Euphrates River, about 10 miles west of its modern-day bed  The ancient city of Ur (also known as Ur of the Chaldees) is a Sumerian city-state located in modern-day southern Iraq, near Nasiriyah. It was famously investigated by British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley between 1922 and 1934 in a joint expedition between the British Museum and the Penn Museum. Woolley  was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, keeping careful records, and using them to reconstruct ancient life and history. Woolley was knighted in 1935 for his contributions to the discipline of archaeology.  Ur was the burial site of what may have been many Sumerian royals. The Woolleys discovered tombs of great material wealth, containing large paintings of ancient Sumerian culture at its zenith, along with gold and silver jewelry, cups and other furnishings. The most extravagant tomb was that of "Queen" Pu-Abi. Amazingly enough, Queen Pu-Abi's tomb was untouched by looters. Inside the tomb, many well-preserved items were found, including a cylindrical seal bearing her name in Sumerian. Her body was found buried along with those of two attendants, who had presumably been poisoned to continue to serve her after death. Woolley was able to reconstruct Pu-Abi's funeral ceremony from objects found in her tomb.

                Kingdom of Aram-Damascus up north   

In the Hebrew Bible, the term Amorite often refers to specific, militant highlander groups or pre-Israelite inhabitants who occupied the land of Canaan.They are frequently described as enemies defeated by the Israelites during the Exodus and conquest narratives, led by kings such as Sihon and Og.  Hammurabi of Babylon: The most celebrated Amorite ruler, King Hammurabi (reigned 1792–1750 BCE), united Mesopotamia under the Code of Hammurabi, one of the oldest and most comprehensive deciphered writings of significant law in the world.   Despite their pastoralist roots, the Amorites rapidly adopted and contributed to the Sumero-Akkadian culture, blending their own traditions (such as the worship of the chief deity Amurru) with native religious and societal structures.

Since Upper Mesopotamia included northern Syria, which was inhabited by groups like the Amorites, some even consider Abraham to be among the Amorites that migrated to the Levant. Like Abraham and his descendants, the Amorites followed shepherding-based lifestyles. Nonetheless, the Biblical authors distanced themselves from the Amorites to assert their moral superiority.  Abram's writings were an upgrade from Hammurabi's list.  

Here's the map showing how Abram/Abraham and his group traveled northwest and then south to Canaan.  

    Terah, father of Nahor and of Abram and Haran,  couldn't make it all the way to Canaan.  They seemed to be traveling in a massive caravan. . By 4,000 years ago (around 2000 B.C.E.), the wheel had already been in use for over a millennium, so they must have had wagons of some sort to travel with.  Mesopotamia: Archaeological excavations—such as those at Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil Plain—have uncovered evidence of monumental city walls, gates, and trade routes used during the Middle Bronze Age.

 Terah, a descendant of Shem son of Noah, was the father of Abram/Abraham, Nahor, and Haran. Their home's location is not certain, but it is usually supposed to have been in Mesopotamia. Besides Lot and Milcah, Haran fathered a daughter Iscah.  After Haran died in Ur of the Chaldees "before his father Terah",his family travelled towards Canaan, the Promised Land. Abram did not know his destination geographically at first. According to the biblical narrative, he knew about the "Promised Land" of Canaan entirely through divine revelation, being called by God to leave his homeland and go to a place that God would "show" him.  

However, Terah stopped at Harran [Hebrew חָרָן, Ḥārān]) and settled there, as did Nahor and Milcah, whereas Lot, son of Haran,  accompanied Abraham and others onwards to Canaan.

World-Wide Human Sacrifice: Measure of Social Development in Cultures Part 1

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Abraham of the 2nd millennium BCE, born in about 1948 BCE, over 4,000 years ago,  believed in human sacrifice.  He is known to have made the attempt to sacrifice his son, Isaac, so dear to Isaac's mother, Sarah and Abraham.  The story is told in order to relate that this act was the last try allowing human sacrifice.  It was not to be practiced thereafter.  For Abraham's descendants, that may have been true, but not for the rest of the world. 

The practice continued in Israel as they took in people from other cultures.   Foreign wives would bring the practice with them in Israel.  A Phoenician princess who worships Baal, the pagan god of fertility, Jezebel, daughter of king of Sidon- now in Lebanon (Phoenicians) ,  marries King Ahab,(876-853 BCE)  son of King Omri  of the northern kingdom of Israel. It was Omri that had forged an alliance with Sidon.  According to the Moabite Stone, he subdued Moab, today's Jordan. Worship of Moloch  was an extension of Baal worship.  The god, Moloch, especially Baal-Melkart, was from Sidon and was their god of hell.  

She persuades him to tolerate her alien faith of Baal worship, then becomes entwined in the vicious religious conflict that ends in her death.  Solomon (961-920 BCE)   had many wives, some that also brought such worship into Israel.  

The practice, seemingly coming from a genetically induced thought, (fear and overcoming it) continued to be practiced. This took place after Abram and Sarah had left Ur for good.  The Hebrew Bible mentions human sacrifice being carried out by Israelites several times; however, researchers do not agree on how often the practice occurred or whether it took place at all. Prophets fought against the practice constantly. As to the Temple, sacrifice continued but only with animals, meal offerings, and libations; never people.  

When Moses (1391-1271 BCE)  sent his spies out to view Canaan, they were also searching for answers:  belief in what gods and were they human being sacrificers...at least that's what Moses wanted to know;  and they were.  Evidence of this was not mentioned.    

Ur, Abraham's city of birth, The Great Death Pit at the ancient city of Ur, in modern-day Iraq, contains the remains of 68 women and six men, many of which appear to have been sacrificed. Dating back about 4,600 years, a variety of fantastic treasures, including a statuette known as the Ram in the Thicket, which is made of silver, shell, gold, lapis lazuli and carnelian, were found in the death pit. Archaeologists believe that the pit was used to bury Ur's rulers. (Sir Woolley's finds)   

Canaanites and Human Sacrifice: 

Canaanite belief in the god, Moloch included human sacrifice, especially of 1st born children to Moloch, through a passage of fire.  (Lev.18:21; and 20:3-5) but persisted in the northern kingdom and even in Jerusalem in a period where altars were built at Topheth in the valley of Hinnom.  Seems as if the whole world was under the cloud of sacrificing humans, wherever one went, and would not die out.                                         

Human sacrifice occurred around 5,000 years ago during Egypt's early history. Human sacrifices have been found by the graves of early pharaohs at Abydos, a city in southern Egypt that served at times as Egypt's capital and was the cult center for Osiris, the god of the underworld. The practice appears to have become less common or completely phased out by the time the Giza pyramids were built around 4,500 years ago.  Seems that Egypt was the original center of many things, a very early cultural center.  

AN AZTEC PRIEST REMOVING A MAN'S HEART DURING A SACRIFICIAL RITUAL, OFFERING IT TO THE GOD HUITZILOPOCHTLI. in 1521, only 500 years ago

The Aztecs of Central America much later on were known to practice human sacrifice on a large scale.  The rationale for Aztec human sacrifice was, first and foremost, a matter of survival. According to Aztec cosmology, the sun god Huitzilopochtli was waging a constant war against darkness, and if the darkness won, the world would end. The keep the sun moving across the sky and preserve their very lives, the Aztecs had to feed Huitzilopochtli with human hearts and blood.  So was from the fear that the workings of the cosmos would come to an end. They realized their dependency on the sun for life.  When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a grisly ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods. They then tossed the victims’ lifeless bodies down the steps of the towering Templo Mayor.  They practiced such sacrificing only 500 years ago. While most pre-Columbian historians believe that ritual cannibalism took place in the context of human sacrifices, they do not support Harris' thesis that human flesh was ever a significant portion of the Aztec diet.      

A  Native American sacrifice was going on  1,000 years ago.  A 10-foot (3 meters) mound called Mound 72 by modern-day archaeologists holds the remains of 272 people, many of them sacrificed. It is located at Cahokia, a city located near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri that flourished from A.D. 1050 to 1200.  The archaeology of the mound is complex, but it appears as if people were sacrificed gradually in a series of episodes. In one episode, 52 malnourished women ages 18 to 23, along with a woman in her 30s, were sacrificed at the same time. In another episode, it appears that 39 men and women were clubbed to death. The mound also holds the remains of two individuals who were buried with 20,000 shell beads. It's possible that some or all of the sacrifices were dedicated to the two individuals.  (Seems that the original reasoning of human sacrifice can evolve to suit a different reasoning).  

Archaeologists in China found hundreds of tombs, some of which held human sacrifices. One sacrificed victim was around 13 years old. Archaeologists have also found thousands of human sacrifices at Shang Dynasty (1600 – 1040 B.C.) around 3,600 years ago,  sites in the modern-day city of Anyang. The practice of human sacrifice seems to have stopped or become very rare by the time China was unified in 221 B.C. by Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. The first emperor's Terracotta army, made up of thousands of life-size clay warriors, allowed him to take an army with him to the afterlife without sacrificing real-life warriors. 

Hawaiian islanders practiced human sacrifice.  Periodically, they would throw a sacrifice into the volcano that threatened their lives.  Other forms of human sacrifice were also practiced here.  Captain Cook was shown the remains.  These graves marked where the bodies of those sacrificed lay, confirming human sacrifice was practiced in the Hawaiian Islands. The truth was that sacrifice was not uncommon. War captives and those that broke a kapu (taboos) were brutally sacrificed. Methods ranged from strangulation to bone breaking and removal of intestines. Significant events like the dedication of a war temple to the tiki war god Ku were considered appropriate times for sacrifices. The practice of human sacrifice persisted until the collapse of the kapu system after the death of King Kamehameha in May 1819.  (Why is it that I feel this had evolved into punishment and sadism along with"sacrifice"? ) 

Stonehenge is a possible center.  Stonehenge was constructed between roughly 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, and was part of a sacred landscape that included shrines, burials and additional circles made of stone or wood. Not all archaeologists are convinced that human sacrifice took place at Stonehenge, but future research into the nearby landscape and its burials may help resolve the debate. The skeleton of a man found buried in a ditch at Stonehenge has been interpreted by Jacqueline McKinley, an osteoarchaeologist with Wessex Archaeology, as a sacrificial victim. The man, who McKinley said was 5 foot 10 inches and had a robust muscular build, was shot repeatedly with arrows. McKinley interprets the location of his burial and nature of his execution as indicating that he was killed as part of a human sacrifice. Her research was featured in 2014 in a Smithsonian channel documentary showing a re-creation of his sacrificial execution.                                    

The upper part of the teenager’s skull was missing, while the body was laid among two lines of stones on an east-west axis, with stone slabs covering the pelvis. Photograph: Uncredited/AP.  The discovery of a 3,000-year-old skeleton in Greece has excited archeologists, who believe that the finding may confirm one of the darkest legends of antiquity.

Skeletal remains 'confirm ancient Greeks engaged in human sacrifice'. Bones found on Mount Lykaion – where animal offerings to Zeus were also made – but some are urging caution over how to interpret the discovery.  Bremmer said that until now, most studies of human sacrifice in ancient Greece had concluded that it was probably fiction.    

Resource:

Genesis: ( 22:1-19) 

https://www.history.com/news/aztec-human-sacrifice-religionhttps://www.livescience.com/59514-cultures-that-practiced-human-sacrifice.html

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/aug/10/skeletal-remains-confirm-ancient-greeks-engaged-in-human-sacrifice#:~:text=Bremmer%20said%20that%20until%20now,not%20common%20among%20the%20Greeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argei

http://www.mythichawaii.com/kahuna-Liholiho.htm

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Celts_and_human_sacrifice#Greco-Roman_antiquity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

          

What Causes People To Be Good and Follow the Laws of Their Family and Country? Part I

 Nadene                                                                 

Religion seems to be the cause of people's behaviors in keeping people obeying the laws of their lands.  They can be threatened about what happens to them when they die.  

In the beginning, to be fertile was the desire of all peoples; both for animals and for people in order for the future to exist. Sacrificing something dear to them was used to persuade their god to help them out.                                         

                  Finding baby Moses in bullrushes.  

Shiphrah (Hebrew: שִׁפְרָה  and Puah (Hebrew: פּוּעָה  were two midwives who briefly prevented a genocide of children by the Egyptians, according to Exodus 1:15–21. According to the Exodus narrative, they were commanded by the King of Egypt, or Pharaoh, to kill all male Hebrew babies, but they refused to do so. When challenged by the Pharaoh, they told him that Hebrew women's labour was short-lived because they were 'lively' or 'vigorous', and therefore the babies had been born (and protected) before the midwives arrived. God "dealt well with the midwives" and "made them houses".  

It says "the midwives feared G-d and they did not do as the king of Egypt spoke to them, and they caused the boys to live."  According to the Sages, the midwives were really Jochabed and Mirium, mother andsister of Moses.   

Judaism developed out of the Laws of Moses, an Ivrit-from the other side-- Jewish man raised since birth in the Egyptian royal family to the point where he realized that beating a slave to death was not right, and he in turn when stopping the beating accidently killed the Egyptian beater and felt he had to flee being it was against the law to kill a man like that.  So Egypt had a rule about killing another, and this was a good 3,400 years ago.  We figure that Moses was born in 1391 BCE (almost 1400 BCE which was  3,422 years ago, and he was about 18 years old.  Moses knew of the law that was against killing a man, even under accidental circumstances.  He also may have had an instinctive feeling that what he did was overdoing a good deed and his killing someone was wrong.  As we understand, Moses was selected by G-d and given direction and laws so that the Exodus occurred. His family line went back to Abraham.  

Abraham (c1948 BCE) , ready to sacrifice Isaac, his son, but stopped by an angel, turned out to be a test of his obedience.  This was the only example of human sacrifice practiced by our Jewish people  of the Ivrit/ Hebrews   It was the Canaanites who sacrificed people.    

Abraham is considered as the father of Judaism due to his oral teachings to his children as they followed his and Sarah's behavior towards other people.  For instance, they always offered food and water to strangers passing by their tent. "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, HaShem appeared to him and said, "I am God Almighty ; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers." "As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations." Evidently in those days, strangers could be attacked and killed for whatever they carried with them.  That was 3,600 years ago.

Jews of the 40 year Exodus from Egypt, figured by some to have commenced by 1579 BCE, others by 1445 BCE, were the descendants of Abram/Abraham and Sarah, and their children:  Isaac, then Jacob-Israel and their 12 sons including Judah, Boaz, Oved, Jesse, David-king of Israel, Solomon.

   Moses confronting the Pharaoh when he returned to Egypt at about age 80-81.  

Moses was from Levi of the 12 sons of Jacob.  He was the son of Levi's daughter, Jochabed who was married to Amram. It was Jochabed who saved Moses's life by hiding him in the bullrushes as a time when the pharaoh put out a "papal bull" saying that all boy babies under age 2 had to be killed because he feared his own death would come from this person.   

  Even in the book, Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, England was pictured as a very dangerous land in the 12th century CE.  So after almost 3,000 years, people were really no better in their treatment of other people in Europe.  That shows that we have improved a great deal from 822 years ago, though.  

It wasn't until Jews had been taken to Babylon in 597 BCE and then more taken in 586 BCE and living there until 538 BCE living there for about 60 years and writing the Babylonian Talmud after 200 CE, that they had developed  more to their original ideas about death which was that  when people died, they joined their fathers.  Death was not an evil thing, but a premature death was looked upon as a great misfortune.  Even today, the Jewish blessing is that a person will live to age 120 (like Moses did).  

                 The Moabites and their human sacrifice

Now this was regarded at a time when all other nations believed in human sacrifice in order to right a bad situation.  Human sacrifice was going on during our biblical family's existence.  That's one reason they fought to keep their own religion going by resisting the temptations to do so that existed.   

A belief was that in death, there was some kind of existence in SHEOL (situated far below the earth, whose inhabitants will not give thanks to the Lord.  Sheol is more especially the dwelling of the wicked.  The dead had a certain kind of psychic powers.  Sheol is not  subject of any Shabbat service.  It has never been mentioned in my experience.                     

Later on in Hebrew Eschatology, death came to be considered a prime evil.  At the End Of Days hopefully many years in the future, death would cease and all the dead would rise.  The idea of Resurrection became a fundamental doctrine of Pharisaic Judaism.  Faith in God came to mean believing in the the Reviver of the Dead.  The Rabbis taught that death came to the world because of sin either that of Adam, from which mankind still suffers, or else personal sin.  

There were some Rabbinic legends that held the belief that the dead carry on some connection with the living and even take an interest in their affairs.  The practice of praying for the intercession of the dead is considered by the rabbis as of early origin. 

 The last act of the dying Jew is the recitation of the Shema which is still in practice today.  Shema Yisrael Adonoi Elohenu, Adonoi Echad.  Hear oh Israel, God is One.  It is a Jewish prayer (known as the Shema) that serves as a centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. Its first verse encapsulates the monotheistic essence of Judaism: "Hear, O Israel: YHWH is our God, YHWH is one" (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃), found in Deuteronomy 6:4

              Blowing the Shofar on Yom Kippur

Jews have a way of getting rid of their sin. First of all, what is sin?  It is defined as being any violation of righteous actions, whether toward God or one's fellow man, is considered sinful by Judaism.  There are variations in the degree of sin. 

1. unwillful sin (bet)

2. knowledgeable sin (avon)

3. rebellious sin (pesha)

No man is free of sin, although he has the free will to reject it.   

Jews have a day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.  Tishri 10  is the most solemn day of the year and is a fast-day of 25 hours of fasting and attending synagogue service.  In Lev.23:32 it is described as a Sabbath of solemn rest.  It is the day on which Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the 2nd tablets of the law and announced to the people the Divine pardon for the sin of the Golden Calf. 

(The people had been waiting for Moses by dancing around this golden calf they had made while waiting.  Aaron made it when the Israelites demanded it.  The calf was burnt by Moses who ground the gold to dust and subsequently obtained Divine forgiveness for the Israelites.  (Exod.32).  The sin of the Golden Calf immediately after the giving of the law, was regarded as the primary offense of the Hebrew people.)                          

Repentance and forgiveness are inextricably linked in Judaism with the subject of sin.  No sin is unpardonable.  Sacrifice, repentance, the Day of Atonement, and death bring forgiveness.  For a sin against a fellow-man, restitution and placation are essential.  Biblical narrative invariably links individual punishment and national calamity to sin.  Confession of sin is important in the Jewish conception of atonement.  This confession, however, is made directly to Heaven and not to any intermediary.  Moreover, it is considered improper to confess private sins aloud, and for this reason, the Day of Atonement ritual has all confessions in the plural. People recite together a list of sins listed in the prayerbook.  

 It just happened to be that calf worship had been going on with other people, especially the Canaanites.  Calves or young bulls were regarded as symbols of strength and fertility among ancient Semitic peoples.  Traces of calf worship are found in the bible in the stories of the Golden Calf constructed by Aaron at Mt. Sinai and the golden calves set up at Dan and Bethel by Jeroboam much later on after Solomon's death in 920 BCE.  

Mentioned in Exodus 32 and I Kings 12 in the Tankah or Old Testament, worship of the golden calf is seen as a supreme act of apostasy, the rejection of a faith once confessed. The figure is probably a representation of the Egyptian bull god Apis in the earlier period and of the Canaanite fertility god Baal in the latter.

Apis was the most important and highly regarded bull deity of ancient Egypt. His original name in Egyptian was Api, Hapi, or Hep; Apis is the Greek name. Worship of the Apis bull is recorded as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3150 - c. 2890 BCE) in ceremonies known as The Running of Apis but veneration of the bull in Egypt precedes this time, and so it is thought that Apis may be the first god of Egypt or, at least, among the first animals associated with divinity and eternity. He was originally a god of fertility, then the herald of the god Ptah but, in time, was considered Ptah incarnate. He was also, in some eras, depicted as the son of Hathor and was closely associated with her goodness and bounty.

        The bull is Baal, the Canaanite god.  

      Sargon, king of Assyria (721-712 BCE) is shown as a bull. He's the one who caused the 10 tribes of Israel to be taken to Assyria.  He had taken the throne when Shalmaneser III had died.  He died from being assassinated.      

We Jews do not make pictures or statues of G-d.  To us, G-d is an unseen force, the Supreme Being.  "The biblical God is already unique by virtue of His non-mythological character;  He has no body, no kindred, no human needs.  All depends on Him and He on nothing."  It definitely is not a man or woman, either, or animal like many in  the ancient world believed. 

                            Herman Wouk in Jerusalem 1955
 Herman Wouk(1915-2019) explains Judaism in This Is My God. "Our place in the world, I believe, depends on what we contribute to mankind.  We have contributed our Torah, the Mosaic vision of G-d, of right conduct, and of first and last things.  It is our life, and the length of our days.  As we keep that flame burning, it seems to me, we earn our right to survive as a people before G-d and man."  He's not a rabbi, but explains it so well.  Our rabbis, whatever type of Judaism they believe, whether Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, are highly well educated people in that religious persuasion.  

• Columbia University, New York, 1934 (A.B. with general honors)
• Yeshiva University, New York, 1954 (Hon. L.H.D.)Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City. The university's undergraduate schools—Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, Katz School of Science ...
• Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1960 (Hon. D.Lit.)
• American International College, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1979 (Hon. Litt.D.)
• Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, 1990 (Hon. Ph.D.)

Grandson of Rabbi Mendel Leib Levine, rabbi in Minsk, New York, and Tel Aviv.  

After Christianity, Judaism is the next largest religious affiliation in the US, though this identification is not necessarily indicative of religious beliefs or practices. There are between 5.3 and 6.6 million Jews. A significant number of people identify themselves as American Jews on ethnic and cultural grounds, rather than religious ones. For example, 19% of self-identified American Jews do not believe God exists. (They could try reading This Is My God).  

 According to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Center, the core American Jewish population is estimated at 7.5 million people, this includes 5.8 million Jewish adults. According to study by Steinhardt Social Research Institute, as of 2020, the core American Jewish population is estimated at 7.6 million people, this includes 4.9 million adults who identify their religion as Jewish, 1.2 million Jewish adults who identify with no religion, and 1.6 million Jewish children.   According to a 2017 study, Judaism is the religion of approximately 2% of the American population.       Israel has two head rabbis and many synagogues.  

Empathy, the key emotion supporting a sense of right and wrong, emerges early and, it seems, naturally, said William Damon of Standford University.   Babies cry in response to the wails of other babies, "and not just because it's a sound that upsets them," notes Carolyn Zahn-Waxler of the National Institute of Mental Health. "They cry more in response to human cries than to other aversive sounds. Somehow, there's a built-in capacity to respond to the needs of others." Babies as young as 1 try to console others in distress. Toddlers offer their security blanket to a teary-eyed parent or a favorite toy to a distraught sibling, as if understanding that the very object that brings them comfort will do the same to another. 

This is used in Judaism, such as treatment of animals that show empathy.  We do not eat meat with milk so as not to hurt the feelings of the mother cow in that she gives mankind her self as meat, and she doesn't want to know that we drink her milk in this same meal. 

The Torah simply gives an example of a "kid in its mother's milk" because that was common practice in ancient times.

Some Jewish authorities give reasons for this prohibition. One reason given is, that it is cruel to cook a baby in the very milk that was intended to nourish it. The Torah forbids the cooking and consumption of any milk with any meat to prevent one from cooking a kid in its mother's milk.

 Even the whole law of kashrut teaches that only a small proportion of living creatures are permitted to be eaten, and every precaution is taken to avoid the consumption of blood or the partaking of meat with milk products.  Even milk from a prohibited animal is forbidden.  

Compassion is to be extended to animals as well as to humans. It is strictly forbidden to cause unnecessary pain to animals. There is a Talmudic rule (Gittin 62a), still followed by pious Jews, that before sitting down to a meal one must first see that the domestic animals are fed. The Midrash remarks that Moses proved his fitness to be the shepherd of Israel by the tender care with which he treated the sheep when he tended the flock of his father-in-law.

In Jewish teaching compassion is among the highest of virtues, as its opposite, cruelty, is among the worst of vices. 

The Amaleks were the cruelest of all people met shortly after the Exodus and always hostile to Israel, annihilating the weak and the wearyl.  they were eventually defeated by the Isrelite army under Joshua (Exod 7-8-13).  They were finally regarded as an eternal foe, the extermination of which was a national mission incompletely carried out later by King Saul. In king David's time they invaded southern Judah, burning the town of Ziklag.  David fought and defeated them heavily, but 400 got away.  In 720 BCE the tribe of Simeon overwhelmed the Amalekites and settled in their territory.  Haman, the Agagite, is regarded as a descendant of Agag, king of Amalek.  

The prophet, Jeremiah, speaks of the people from the north country who ‘lay hold on bow and spear, they are cruel, and have no compassion’ (Jeremiah 6:21). The people of Amalek, in particular, are singled out in the Jewish tradition as perpetrators of wanton cruelty, and an uncompassionate Jew is called an Amalekite. 

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#:~:text=People%20with%20no%20formal%20religious,%25%20Catholic%20and%202%25%20other.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/golden-calf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Wouk

https://www.worldhistory.org/Apis/

https://www.jccmb.com/templates/articlecco_cdo/aid/1339531/jewish/Milk-and-Meat.htm

https://ulpan.com/why-hebrew-is-called-ivrit/